Apr

29

1945

US troops liberate Dachau concentration camp

Jubilant prisoners greet the liberating US Army at Dachau on 29th April 1945.

Dachau concentration camp was the first camp established by the Nazis, shortly after they came to power in 1933. At first the camp was used to detain enemies of the Nazi regime, political prisoners. Later many tens of thousands of other would pass through the camp and its numerous sub-camps, including groups of Jews, women and Clergy ( mainly Catholics) from all over occupied Europe.

Dachau was not an extermination camp with gas chambers, although the death rate from conventional executions, starvation and ill treatment was high and the camp was equipped with ‘ovens’ for the disposal of the dead. It was also the site of numerous medical experiments on detainees, many of whom died in the course of experiments, which included prolonged exposure to freezing water and simulated high altitude tests.

Survivors of the Dachau concentration camp demonstrate the operation of the crematorium by pushing a corpse into one of the ovens

By the time the US Army arrived the camp was overcrowded with thousands of prisoners who had been transferred from other camps and there were far too many dead for the usual process of incineration to cope with.

The events of 29th April are contested. Some witnesses claim that the US troops massacred the SS men who were found guarding the camp on the day. Others suggest that this is a gross exaggeration of one incident where a single group of SS men were shot down, possibly for attempting to escape. Unusually in these circumstances there is also some photographic evidence.

One man provides eyewitness testimony. Nerin E. Gun was a Turkish journalist who had fallen foul of the Nazis for his reporting of the Warsaw Uprising – he had been arrested and sent to Dachau:

three SS men are still on their turret … they have pivoted their machine guns in the other direction, away from us, and they are peering into the distance

… a single man emerges from behind a cement mixer parked at the edge of the camp … wearing a helmut embellished with leaves and branches … he moves cautiously forward, submachine gun in one hand, grenade in the other … he is still far away but I imagine I see him chewing gum … he comes cautiously, but upright, stalwart, unafraid …I almost expect him to be followed by a pure white charger … we knew America only by its films

… this first image of the liberation was truly out of an American western … this soldier of the 3rd Battalion, 45th Combat Division was the very incarnation of the American hero … we will never forget those first few seconds … the memory of the unique, magnificent moment of your arrival … you had come at the risk of your life, into an unknown country, for the sake of an unknown people, bringing us the most precious thing in the world, the gift of freedom …

DACHAU, GERMANY – Shortly after Dachau’s liberation, American soldiers view the bodies inside one of the open railcars. (Photo courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Eric Schwab)

The detachment under the command of the American major had not come directly to the Jorhaus, it had made a detour by way of the marshalling yard, where the convoy of deportees normally arrived and departed.

There they found some fifty-odd cattle cars parked on the tracks – the cars were not empty. The train was full of corpses, piled one on the other, 2310 of them to be exact. The train had come from Birkenau and the dead were Hungarian and Polish Jews, children among them. Their journey had lasted perhaps thirty or forty days.

They had died of hunger, of thirst, of suffocation, of being crushed or of being beaten by the guards. There were even evidence of cannibalism. They were all practically dead when they arrived at Dachau station.

The SS did not take the trouble to unload them. They simply decided to stand guard and shoot down any with enough strength left to emerge from the cattle cars. The corpses were strewn everywhere – on the rails, the steps, the platforms.”

“I never saw anything like it in my life,” said Lieutenant Harold Mayer, “Every one of my men became raving mad.”

…

Within a quarter of an hour, there was not a single one of Hitler’s henchmen alive.

Photograph allegedly showing an unauthorized execution of SS troops in a coal yard in the area of the Dachau concentration camp during its liberation—part of the Dachau liberation reprisals. 29 April 1945 (U.S Army photograph)The caption for the photograph in the U.S. National Archives reads, “SC208765, Soldiers of the 42nd Infantry Division, U.S. Seventh Army, order SS men to come forward when one of their number tried to escape from the Dachau, Germany, concentration camp after it was captured by U.S. forces. Men on the ground in background feign death by falling as the guards fired a volley at the fleeing SS men. (157th Regt. 4/29/45).”

An alternative account was given by Lt. Col. Felix L. Sparks, a battalion commander of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division who stated that a young soldier was manning a machine gun keeping watch on a group of approximately 50 SS men in the coal yard. Sparks heard the soldier cry “They’re trying to get away!” and the sound of the machine gun being fired. He saw that about a dozen men had been killed in the incident and more wounded. He replaced the soldier with an NCO in charge of the machine and there was apparently no further shooting.

It was the forgoing incident which has given rise to wild claims in various publications that most or all of the German prisoners captured at Dachau were executed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The total number of German guards killed at Dachau during that day most certainly not exceed fifty, with thirty probably being a more accurate figure.

The regimental records for that date indicate that over a thousand German prisoners were brought to the regimental collecting point. Since my task force was leading the regimental attack, almost all the prisoners were taken by the task force, including several hundred from Dachau.

This and other incidents were investigated by the Seventh Army’s Assistant Inspector General, Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker, who made recommendations that some US soldiers should face charges. However the Military Governor of Bavaria at the time he reported, General George S. Patton, chose to take no further action.

At the end of 1945 Colonel Charles L. Decker, an acting deputy judge advocate decided that there probably had been breaches of international law but:

in the light of the conditions which greeted the eyes of the first combat troops, it is not believed that justice or equity demand that the difficult and perhaps impossible task of fixing individual responsibility now be undertaken.

Hundreds of bodies clad in gray and white striped prison uniforms are laid out in rows at Dachau concentration camp. This is what US troops found after they took control of the camp.

I know Robert Sherman was part of the first troops to enter Dachau not knowing what horror he was about. to walk into !You find that out when he cries telling his very sad story and being so young and the evilness he saw and never could have imagined ! He says this on the Sherman Brothers documentary that Richard and Robert Sherman 2 sons put together!l I also would like to add I cry about. the wicked murderous nazis who caused so much ugliness and damage that we can still feel today in the 21st century! Many Jehovahs Wittness died in those horrendous camps because they would not salute the Satanic Hitler and the would not sign any papers renouncing there faith and loyalty to Jehovah God! It is such and ugly reminder of hatered and so much blood guilt and atrocious stain in in human history!!!!

My father was one of the Americans who liberated the camp. He drove a truck with food. The Americans had to ration the food they gave to the prisoners because if they ate too much, they would die. For those who say that the holicaust didn’t happen, they are ignorant, because my father and many others saw and took pictures of what they witnessed.

The last photograph is of Nordhausen, not Dachau. Seems the rubble on the right side is intentionally blurred as well. Nordhausen the barracks at the camp were accidentally bombed by the RAF and all the bodies on the ground are the result. Nordhausen was a labor camp, and the end result of a miss drop. Google Nordhausen and you will get that very picture.

Every person should experience visiting Dachau or the dozens of others like it. There in 2002 and it still has that burned human flesh smell. Definitely a negative energy, depressing space on our planet. Don’t kid yourself that it can’t happen again…..it will…

I’m sorry, but am I supposed to feel outrage over this? If so, allow me to say I surely do not. What I am is outraged that anyone would find injustice in this and feel that the Germans, of all people at this time, are portrayed somehow as wronged. I find it amazing that a single one of them survived to be relinquished as a ‘prisoner of war’ and allowed a trial at all.